Terms of Use

Scope, Changes in Terms of Use

1.1 The news portal webnews.de is an Offer (hereinafter referred to as "WEBNEWS Services") made by lokalisten media GmbH, Klenzestrasse 38, 80469 Munich (hereinafter referred to as "WEBNEWS"). WEBNEWS makes this Offer available to you on the basis of these Terms of Use (hereinafter referred to as Standard Terms and Conditions, "STC"). By using or registering for the WEBNEWS Service, you consent to the applicability of the STC. If you do not wish to be bound by these STC, you are not permitted to carry out any registration or to use the services offered.

1.2 WEBNEWS retains the right to amend the STC, effective for the future. In this case, WEBNEWS will notify you in advance of the amendments to the STC and inform you that the amendments shall be considered accepted if you do not object to the amendments within four weeks.

2.1 Only those users who are fully legally competent or who act with the consent of their legally authorized representative are entitled to participate.

2.2 You are obligated to provide true, precise, current, and complete information according to the requirements of the registration form. After registration you will receive a confirmation link in a confirmation e-mail sent to the e-mail address specified at registration. Registration is only successfully completed upon activation of this confirmation link.

2.3 Please note that statements on legal transactions (e.g., a confirmation e-mail, amendments to the STC) can be sent to you by e-mail.

2.4 Your member account is non-transferable and non-inheritable.

You consent to receive a NEWSLETTER from WEBNEWS that informs me about all exciting topics relating to the WEBNEWS Service and its partners. I can cancel this newsletter at any time.

3. Termination, Blocking of the Member Account

3.1 You can delete your member account at any time without stating reasons. WEBNEWS will then delete the data input at registration and continue to publish the content created by you in anonymous form.

3.2 You grant your consent that WEBNEWS can also immediately block or delete your member account and all information and files and/or suspend any access to such data or to the Offer, insofar as a factual basis for doing so exists. Such a factual basis shall exist particularly when WEBNEWS determines, upon duly conducting an audit, that you have violated the STC or provisions of law, or if you have not used the WEBNEWS Services for a longer period of time. However, before a member account is deleted due to a longer period of non-use, WEBNEWS will contact you using the specified e-mail address.

3.3 You consent that any interruption whatsoever to your access to the WEBNEWS Services pursuant to this agreement can be carried out without prior notification.

3.5 After deletion of your member account due to a measure under No. 3.2 above, you can only receive renewed access to the Offer after receiving our prior express written consent. You are also not permitted to help a user whose user account was deleted or blocked receive access to the Offer through your user account or with the assistance of your member account.

4. General Duties of the User

4.1 You shall ensure that your member account is only used by you personally, and you must particularly keep your password secret for this purpose.

4.2 You acknowledge that the holder of a member account is responsible to the full extent for all activities that are carried out through his/her member account. If you have permitted another person to use your member account, you acknowledge that you are fully responsible for the actions of this user, for monitoring access and use of the Offer by this user, and for the consequences of any abuse.

4.3 You shall inform us without undue delay of any abusive use of your password or member account, as well as of any other violation of security regulations whatsoever, and shall be liable to WEBNEWS for abuses of your member account caused by you.

4.4 You will personally procure the technical requirements necessary for participation (e.g., an Internet connection or mobile telephone connection) at your own expense.

4.5 You agree to refrain from actions that impair or could impair the functionality of our services (e.g., using software or other scripts). This also applies particularly to the use of "robot," "spider," or "offline reader" software that automatically generate user inquiries via the Internet. RSS services expressly supported by WEBNEWS are excluded. You will likewise refrain from modifying, overwriting, copying, or disseminating areas of the website not made available to you for this purpose, including areas belonging to other users.

4.6 You are not permitted to use our Offer or portions thereof, the use of our Offer by you as a service, or the access to our Offer for commercial purposes of any kind whatsoever; e.g., imitating, selling, renting, or using or offering it for your own or third-party advertising purposes.

5. Responsibility, Prohibited Content and Behaviors

5.1 The responsibility for all information, data, texts, software, music, sounds, photos, graphics, videos, news, or other materials ("Content") that is stored, published, or transmitted by you or by other users through the use of the WEBNEWS Service shall remain exclusively and without limitation with the person who published the Content in the WEBNEWS Service.

5.2 WEBNEWS does not check any Content that you or other users save, publish, and/or transmit via our services, and therefore assumes no warranty for the correctness, appropriateness, or quality of such Content. You are aware that by using the Offer you may be exposed to Content that is insulting, offensive, or objectionable in some other way if the user responsible for this Content does not comply with the provisions of these STC or relevant laws.

5.3 When sending news within the WEBNEWS Service, the user agrees to comply with statutory regulations, and particularly not to send or have sent any news that contains advertising without the express consent of the individual recipient. If the user violates this obligation, then WEBNEWS is entitled to immediately block the user in accordance with No. 3.2.

5.4 In conjunction with use of the WEBNEWS Service, you are not permitted to do the following:

To store, publish, and/or transmit data, texts, pictures, files, links, software, or other content that is illegal, damaging, threatening, abusive, harassing, libelous, vulgar, obscene, hate-provoking, racist, or objectionable in any other way, or may cause damage to minors in any way whatsoever, particularly those that are pornographic, glorifying violence, or otherwise endangering according to the relevant statutory regulations or in the assessment of WEBNEWS

To store, publish and/or transmit material that contains software viruses or other information, files, or programs that are intended or suitable to interrupt, destroy, or restrict the function of computer software or hardware or of telecommunications facilities

To store, publish and/or transmit Content that you are not authorized to forward

To represent yourself in the WEBNEWS Services as a different person, e.g., as a representative of WEBNEWS or another person responsible for the Offer in any other way, or to pretend to have a relationship to such persons that does not exist

To falsify headers or to manipulate indicators in any other way in order to obscure the source of any Content that is transmitted in conjunction with the Offer

To violate provisions of national or international law including stock exchange rules (e.g., those of the New York Stock Exchange, the American Stock Exchange, NASDAQ, or the Frankfurt Stock Exchange) in connection with the use of our Offer

To harass, insult, threaten, libel, or cause difficulty or embarrassment to anyone, either a natural person or a legal entity, or to cause any person discomfort in any other way, or to allege or disseminate untrue facts in connection with any natural person or legal entity or any company

To collect, store, or transmit personal data about other users insofar as the affected parties do not consent thereto.

5.5 WEBNEWS retains the right to delete Content that is accessible through the WEBNEWS Service without indicating reasons and with immediate effect, particularly as soon as WEBNEWS receives notice of such Content as violates these STCs, provisions of law, and/or third-party rights.

6. Content from Users

6.1 WEBNEWS permits you to use the Service in conformity with the provisions of law and the provisions of these STCs in order to store, publish, and transmit Content and to share it with other users. WEBNEWS does not supervise you when you do so, does not assert any claim to ownership of your Content, and will also not modify such Content.

6.2 When using the Offer, you commission us with saving your Content and making it publicly accessible within the scope of the Offer as currently designed, in accordance with the provisions of these STCs.

6.3 You are aware that marketed advertising will occur in this Offer and thus in the environment of your Content, and you hereby expressly state your consent thereto. Moreover, you permit us to create reduced-size representations (thumbnails) of your Content for better use of our Offer, particularly by a search function, and to use them in the WEBNEWS Services. You are also aware that the technical processing and transfer of our Offer, including the Content input by you, may make it necessary to perform transfers using various networks and/or to carry out technical changes in order to comply with the technical requirements of connected networks or other technical facilities.

6.4 You guarantee that you possess all of the necessary rights in connection with the Content that you add to the WEBNEWS Service for storage, publication and/or transfer, and that with this Content you do not violate any third-party rights of any kind whatsoever, any statutory regulations, or the rules of these STCs, particularly the rules set forth in No. 5.4. If you personally are not the holder of the rights to any Content input by you, you guarantee that you have effectively obtained all necessary transfers of rights, licenses, permits, consents, and the like. In the case that you violate these guarantees or one from you, you shall indemnify us under No. 10 of these STCs from all liability to third parties and shall hold us completely harmless. This also includes reimbursement of costs for legal defense.

6.5 WEBNEWS is authorized to store Content and to disclose it to third parties insofar as this is required by law or necessary and legally permitted in its own due discretion in order (a) to satisfy legal provisions or orders from judges or government agencies, (b) to enforce these STCs, (c) to react to the assertion of a violation of rights by third parties, or (d) to preserve the rights, ownership, or personal security of WEBNEWS, its users, or the public.

7. Notice of Violations of Rights

7.1 WEBNEWS respects the intellectual property of third parties and calls on its users to do the same.

7.2 If you are of the opinion that your copyrights have been violated by Content from another user who uses our Offer for storage, publication, or transmission of his/her Content, please notify us thereof by providing the following information:

A description of the copyrighted work that was violated in your opinion

A description of where the material that violates copyright in your opinion is located

An electronic or handwritten signature from the person who is authorized to act for the owner of rights

Your address, telephone number, and e-mail address

A statement from you that, to the best of your knowledge and belief, the use objected to is not permitted by the holder of the copyright, by his/her agent, or by legal regulations

A declaration in lieu of oath from you that the information above is true and that you are the holder of the copyright or are authorized to act in the name of the owner of rights.

7.3 In case of any violations of rights, please contact us by letter or fax at lokalisten media GmbH, Klenzestrasse 38, 80469 Munich, fax +49 89 2388 755 500. This applies in particular if you wish to ask WEBNEWS to remove Content. Please include in your letter the URL of the relevant contribution, the name of the contribution, a brief explanation, and your contact information for any questions.

7.4 Please inform WEBNEWS of all violations of these STCs by prohibited Content. If you determine that Content from other users violates these STCs or statutory regulations, please notify us using the "Problem Report" form. Please enter the identification data of the person who is not following the rules, together with the relevant Content or a description thereof, in the corresponding form field.

8. Exclusion of Liability, Links

8.1 WEBNEWS retains the right to terminate individual services or the entire news portal at any time, or to carry out occasional maintenance work at any time, which may lead to a lack of accessibility. You use the services at your own risk. This applies particularly to the downloading or any other use of Content, particularly Content from other users, from our services. You are solely responsible for any damage to your computer system or other technical devices employed for use of the service, for loss of data, or for other damage, as well as for damage to third parties caused by you in this connection.

8.2 WEBNEWS does not guarantee to you nor to any other person that the Offer will satisfy your requirements or that it is available at all times without interruption, timely, secure, and free of errors. WEBNEWS assumes no liability regarding the results that may be achievable by using the Offer, or regarding the correctness and dependability of the information received in conjunction with the Offer. WEBNEWS also does not guarantee that the hardware and software used for our Offer will work without error at all times, or that any errors in the hardware or software will be corrected, and assumes no liability for damage arising from the use or impossibility of use of the WEBNEWS Services, including data loss or data corruption. In particular, WEBNEWS is not liable for costs for replacement or for costs incurred in connection with any goods or services that may be acquired, messages received or other transactions, or any change in your entries or data, or in any other way in connection with the WEBNEWS Services.

8.3 WEBNEWS also assumes no liability for the behavior of users or other third parties or for Content or statements forwarded by users or other third parties in conjunction with the Offer.

8.4 Our Offer can contain references (links) to other websites and services, also including Content that users of our offers store on our services within the scope of our services. We do not check the targets of these links, do not acquire ownership of the content that is accessible on or through such third-party offers or sources, and exclude any and all liability or warranty in connection with them.

9. Liability and Limitation of Liability

9.1 Claims for damage against WEBNEWS are excluded regardless of their legal grounds unless WEBNEWS, its legal representatives, or its agents have acted with wrongful intent or gross negligence. WEBNEWS shall only be liable for slight negligence if a contractual obligation material for the achievement of the contractual purpose was violated by WEBNEWS or its legal representatives, officers or agents.

9.2 The foregoing limitation of liability does not apply to claims for damage that result from death, physical injury, impairment of health, or acceptance of a guarantee of characteristics, or from fraudulent concealment of defects by WEBNEWS.

9.3 Insofar as WEBNEWS is liable for slight negligence under No. 9.1 of these STCs, the claim for damage shall be limited to the foreseeable damage that is typical for the agreement.

9.4 Claims for damage against WEBNEWS shall lapse upon passage of 12 months since their occurrence unless they are based on a prohibited or intentional action.

9.5 Insofar as the liability of WEBNEWS is excluded, this also applies to companies affiliated with WEBNEWS as well as for personal liability of salaried employees, wage employees, other employees, representatives, shareholders, and agents of WEBNEWS and/or companies affiliated with WEBNEWS.

10. Indemnification

You hereby state that you will indemnify and hold harmless WEBNEWS, companies affiliated with WEBNEWS, and the salaried employees, wage employees, other employees, representatives, shareholders, and agents of WEBNEWS and/or companies affiliated with WEBNEWS upon first request in connection with receivables or claims of any kind whatsoever that are asserted by third parties based on or in connection with Content that you store, publish, or transmit in conjunction with the WEBNEWS Services, or based on your use of our Offer or based on violations of these STCs or of third-party rights. Each of these also includes reasonable attorney's fees and court costs.

11. WEBNEWS Brands and Other Property Rights

You acknowledge that WEBNEWS is exclusively entitled to all rights to the Offer from WEBNEWS and its labeling, including any brand rights, patent rights, copyrights, or licensing rights or other rights or comparable legal positions in relationship to you, and that you will not use them without the prior express written consent of WEBNEWS or remove notices of the legal ownership of WEBNEWS. In particular, you are not permitted to use the brand "WEBNEWS", to copy, modify, or disassemble software or to create an edited version thereof, to attempt to discover the source code, to sell or assign any software, to grant sub-licenses thereto, to transfer any rights to the software, or to claim any rights. For clarification, the foregoing does not apply to your own Content that you place within our Offer, nor to such Content from other users. However, you shall respect the rights of the other individual right holders to their own Content to the same extent.

12. Applicable law, Place of Performance, Jurisdiction and Venue

12.1 The laws of the Federal Republic of Germany shall apply, to the exclusion of the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods.

12.2 To the extent that this is legally permissible, the place of performance shall be Munich, Germany, and the courts of Munich shall have exclusive jurisdiction and venue.

12.3 No oral ancillary agreements exist. Amendments to the contractual terms and conditions shall be made in writing to be effective. This also applies to the cancellation or amendment of this requirement of written form.

12.4 Should individual provisions of this agreement be or become invalid in whole or in part, this shall not affect the validity of the agreement as a whole. In case of any such invalidity, the parties to the contract shall replace the invalid provision with a legally valid replacement provision that approximates the economic purpose of the invalid provision as closely as possible. The same shall apply in case of any lacuna in the provisions.